


The Lydia Bennet

by cnell



Series: Turning Page Productions [7]
Category: Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-29
Updated: 2013-10-04
Packaged: 2017-12-27 21:55:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/984065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cnell/pseuds/cnell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lydia leaves home and continues her video blog in Los Angeles, but Internet drama has a way of following her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Winter/Spring 2015_

 

“I guess it had to happen eventually,” she says.

She’s out of focus, her phone’s camera jerking as she walks, and still her smudged-mascara eyes look bright and hard. Behind her, the dark blur of the street is streaked with neon signs and the impassive faces of people turning to stare at her – this orange-haired woman ranting to herself on a Los Angeles sidewalk.

She laughs, a harsh angry sound, baring her teeth. “What’s it been, five months? Who called it, guys?” Her long earrings swing wildly against her neck as she comes to a stop. “My name is Lydia Bennet, and I just got fired.”


	2. Chapter 2

If Lydia was honest, it was boredom, not bravery, that finally pushed her to move to LA. All her fears about leaving home were no match for those long, tedious months living with her parents at age 22, in a town with no sisters, no friends, basically nothing to hold her back.

After graduation, her father said she had to pay rent or move out if she wouldn’t go back to school; so she got a job at the 24-hour supermarket, paid the rent and saved the rest. The night shifts were exhausting, but at least she didn’t have to deal with people staring at her and whispering.

“Yeah, word got around,” she told her viewers. “Not even Darcy and his magic checkbook could stop that. I’m ‘The Girl With the Sex Tape’ – and everybody in town saw it coming.” She smiled, shrugged. Anger wasn’t worth the effort anymore. “God, I can’t wait to get out of here.”

All through the summer and fall, Lydia went to work, hung out with Mary, talked on the phone with her sisters, watched Netflix movies with her parents and attended monthly counseling sessions. One day she dug through her bedroom and threw out all the things that held bad memories for her – certain articles of clothing, Lizzie’s self-help book, everything except the diamond necklace George Wickham had given her. That she clenched in her fist until it left a red imprint in her palm, then put it back in its velvet box and hid it on the top shelf of her closet. She called Lizzie later that afternoon, and then she made a video about it.

She made videos about every twist and turn of her life these days, no matter how dull or disjointed it seemed to her, posting at least once a week. “That’s what you’re here for, right?” she said, half-joking, half-defiant. “See YouTube star Lydia Bennet reveal everything.”

The holidays arrived, and with them Lizzie and Jane – but they were all grown up now, and they brought boyfriends and boyfriends’ sisters with them. “One big happy family, no hard feelings!” chirped Lydia, waving her hands, and then her shoulders slumped. “Ugh, it’s Awkward City around here. Plus Mom is dropping so many hints about proposals and babies that even Jane got annoyed with her, and I swear Lizzie’s head is about to explode.”

She huffed with annoyance and took a drink from an expensive-looking bottle of Pinot Noir. “Thank _god_ Bing decided not to sell Netherfield. At least when we need space, which is all the freaking time, we all have our own wings of the mansion to hide in.” She winked and hoisted her bottle at the camera. “I claimed the wing with the wine cellar. I’m practical like that.”

Home felt even emptier when everyone left.

In the first two weeks of 2015, Lydia drove all over town filming things on her phone, showing her viewers the run-down shopping mall and her old high school and the park where she used to play hide-and-seek when she was a kid. Then she quit her job, packed everything she owned into her car, wrestled Kitty into a cat carrier and drove three hours to Los Angeles.


	3. Chapter 3

The first thing Lydia did in LA was take her camera outside. “Here I am,” she said, and turned to film the narrow street and small crowded houses overshadowed by the skyline. The air looked pale and heavy and rumbled with the constant noise of the Santa Ana Freeway.

The camera lingered for a moment on a short Mexican-American girl watching from the front yard. “See, she’s all safe,” she said, waving. “So no freaking out, big sisters.”

Lydia was staying with a friend she met on YouTube. Her name was Jess, and she lived with two other housemates in a working-class neighborhood on the Eastside. She had connected with Lydia for the same reason a lot of her viewers did: they had both been abused by dickhead boyfriends. Jess’s had slapped her around and stolen money from her. Lydia said he was worse than George. Jess replied that she wasn’t so sure, and fuck them both anyway, what did it matter?

There was a job available at the bar where Jess worked – enough to pay the bills, at least, until Lydia found something else. They went downtown to meet the boss, driving along Sixth Street and crossing the old concrete viaduct spanning the river. Jess jerked her chin and flicked her dark hair out of her face. “Enjoy the view while you can. They’re about to tear this bridge down.”

“Really?” Lydia squinted out the window at the railroad tracks below.

“Yeah, they say it’s falling apart, so they’re going to scrap it and build a new one with big shiny arches.” Her mouth twisted with amusement. “They want to turn us into a ‘bridge city’ like San Francisco. Attract the tourists, you know.”

“Ha,” said Lydia, as the skyscrapers rose up around them. “Kinda wish we could keep the old one.”

Jess shrugged.

The first few weeks were hard. This part of the city was rougher than the cheerful neighborhood where Jane had lived, and clearing tables in a bar was nothing like partying in one. For a while Lydia’s videos featured her sitting in her room, clutching Kitty in her lap and tearfully wondering what the hell she was doing there; but by the time her phone rang with a worried call from Lizzie or Jane or Mary, her stubbornness had taken over. “I’m fine,” she said. “I’ve handled way worse than this.”

She wasn’t isolated for long. She had never met a social scene she couldn’t worm her way into, and there were house parties to go to and couches to crash on whenever she needed them. Her enjoyment of those parties was hit and miss – “Sometimes it’s like we’re only there because we can’t stand to be alone with ourselves” – but it was better than nothing.

What she liked was the next morning, when she stepped out of a strange house into a strange neighborhood and went home. No matter what urban sprawl or tangled freeways Los Angeles threw at her, she could always find her way back. She drove singing along to the radio, her hair twisting in the breeze from the open window, the city shimmering with hazy sunlight in front of her.

One of those mornings, she fastened her camera to the dashboard and talked about the man she’d gone to bed with, her first since arriving in LA. “Nice guy, I guess. He had no idea who I was, it was totally meaningless for him and I’ll never see him again. And that’s fine.” She smiled, focusing on the rush of traffic. “I think I needed to know I could do that.”

Lizzie, of course, almost had a meltdown. “You can’t talk about sex on the Internet!” she wailed over the phone. “What if some sleazeball gets the wrong idea and starts harassing you?”

Lydia shoved aside her own nagging fears along with her sister’s. “They do that no matter what I talk about, Lizzie.”

“Then why encourage them?”

“Why is it my job to make them stop?”

She could hear Lizzie freeze, then deflate. “It’s not your job. I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. I just don’t want you to get hurt again.”

“I’m being careful,” Lydia reassured her. “If I ever feel threatened, I’ll call you _and_ the police. Okay?”

“Okay. And just please, _please_ promise me you’ll always use protection.”

“Oh my god, if you say that one more time I’m going to start sending you condom wrappers through the mail.”


	4. Chapter 4

A business trip brought Lizzie to LA in early March – and she’d thought she knew the downtown area pretty well by now, but moving confidently through tenth-floor offices was one thing and poking around in alleys off Hill Street was entirely another.

She finally found the address she was looking for, wedged between a parking garage and a pawn shop: a narrow doorway leading to a dark staircase. She ducked inside and walked straight into a balding, tattooed man easily three times her size.

Lizzie tottered back a step. "Um. Hi.”

“We’re not open yet,” the bouncer grunted, and crossed his arms like he expected her to try to fight her way in.

“I know, I'm here to, uh…” She looked past his massive shoulder at the sign welcoming her to The Mighty, and checked that it matched the name she’d scrawled on a scrap of paper. “Does Lydia Bennet work here? Am I in the right place?"

That only made him glare suspiciously, but before he could answer Lydia was bounding down the steps, all smiles and flying red hair. "Oh my god, hi! When did you get here?” She wrapped a very relieved Lizzie in a hug before waving the bouncer aside. “It's cool, she's my big sister. Chris, Lizzie. Lizzie, Chris."

"Hi," Lizzie said again.

His face twitched in greeting, then took on a tiny hint of fondness as he looked at Lydia. "You closing tonight?"

Lydia wrinkled her nose. "Yeah, but I've got the rest of the weekend off, thank god.” She dragged her sister upstairs. “Hey, give me a heads-up if Vince is coming, I’m gonna make Lizzie a drink."

"You didn't tell me the Hulk worked here," Lizzie whispered as they crossed the empty dance floor to the bar. Pop music from Lydia’s iPod played at a relatively gentle volume over the sound system. Jess was at the back of the room wiping tables and waved her washcloth at them.

"Don't worry about him, he's just being protective,” Lydia said. She smirked over her shoulder, tugging at her sparkly tank top. “Hard to blame him, you’re kinda dressed like a probation officer."

"Hey, come on, I've been in meetings all – wait, you're not on probation, are you?"

Lydia rummaged behind the bar for a glass and an ice scoop. "No, weirdo. Make sure to tell Mom that. Oh, and that tweet about drugs was a joke, in case she was wondering."

Lizzie gave a short, weary laugh. Their YouTube star status was still a touchy subject with their mother; there had been arguments and tears when they finally told her the secrets they’d kept from her. But once she realized the Internet was her best resource for prying into the lives of her daughters, she put aside her hurt feelings and learned the ropes of web video and Twitter with astonishing proficiency.

With Lydia documenting her life in Los Angeles, Mrs. Bennet had plenty of excuses to call Lizzie in a panic every week. "Now, I'm sure that little Mexican friend of hers means well," she said, "but heaven only knows what kind of people they're mixed up with, livin’ in such a neighborhood! Why, it’s practically a slum!" Lizzie made up her mind on the spot to check everything out and report back to her, just to reduce the chances of her mother ever saying such a thing to Jess’s face.

At first glance, Lizzie decided, The Mighty didn’t look too bad. Its retro Hollywood décor was a bit threadbare, but it wasn’t the seedy whorehouse conjured up by her mother’s imagination. She didn’t think much of Vince, the bar’s skeevy-sounding owner; but Lydia said he was harmless enough, spending most of his time on the phone or hanging out in the break room.

“Check this out,” Lydia said. She grasped a bottle of vodka by the neck with her right hand, flipped it high in the air and caught it straight into a pour with her left. “Cool, right? Jess is teaching me.”

Lizzie was hunched below the bar, her arms shielding her head. “Ha ha wow, that’s great!”

Strolling over to join them, Jess tossed her cloth onto the counter and hopped onto the stool next to Lizzie. “Yeah, she’s only taken out two customers and a busboy so far. Very promising.”

“Oh, whatever,” scoffed Lydia, busy with tonic water and lime slices. “I practically run this place by now.”

“Eh, you’re all right.” Jess gave Lizzie a wry look and jabbed her thumb at Lydia. “She’s a mother hen, this one. She’s always chasing after drunk girls and shoving glasses of water at them.”

Lizzie clasped her hands over her heart. “Aw, _Lydia_.”

Lydia glared, sliding the vodka tonic across the bar. “That’s awesome, Jess, thanks.”

Their weekend together was encouraging even for a chronic worrier like Lizzie. Lydia was settling into her job and didn’t need money (though she was more than happy to let Lizzie pay for things). Her housemates were either employed or in school, and thanks to her videos she already had a support network of friends and acquaintances all over town. She was independent, resourceful, and tackling adulthood like a woman with something to prove. Lizzie returned to San Francisco drafting a reassuring email to their mother and hoping they could all relax for a while.

She really should have known better.


	5. Chapter 5

Lizzie woke to the buzz of her phone on the nightstand. She grumbled, squinting at the clock; it was nearly 1 AM. A look at the call notification brought her fully awake. “Lydia?”

“It’s not an emergency,” her sister said. “Tell the boyfriend to stand down.”

Sure enough, Darcy was stirring beside her, laying a questioning hand on her shoulder. She settled him with a few murmured words before easing out of bed and padding into the dark living room. Beyond the doors of the balcony, a light drizzle blurred the orange streetlamps of Pacific Heights.

“I woke you up.” Lydia’s voice was tired and strangely flat.

“Yes, but it’s okay.”

“Sorry. I tried to wait until morning, but I couldn’t sleep.”

“What’s the matter?” Lizzie curled up in a corner of the couch, pulling the cashmere throw around her.

"Vince wants to pay me for my videos.” She swallowed, and then her words tumbled out of her. “He said I could be like a spokesperson for the bar and I'd get a raise and go to parties and get my picture on the website and Lizzie, oh my god, I don’t know what to do. What should I do?"

"Wow." It was hard work keeping the immediate distrust from her voice, but Lizzie managed it. "Well, I'm not surprised. You’ve built up quite an audience."

There was only nervous silence on the end of the line. "Lydia," she said carefully, "do you think Vince might be trying to..."

"Cash in on my reputation? I thought of that." She sounded resigned and world-weary in a way that made Lizzie's heart ache. "Maybe I just have to deal, you know? Like, who in LA _doesn't_ have a sex scandal? And maybe this could lead to something else later on."

"A career, you mean?"

Lydia faltered. "I like making videos,” was the best explanation she could come up with. “It's the only thing I really want to do."

Lizzie was quiet for a while, then put her thoughts aside for later. "Have you signed anything yet?"

"No."

"Do you want me to look at the contract, make sure he's not trying to scam you?"

"Yeah,” she said, relieved. “Thanks."

The next week, Lizzie flew back to Los Angeles on Lydia's evening off and took her out to dinner in Santa Monica, in a restaurant with cloth napkins and a to-die-for dessert cart. "Mmm, food that's not instant ramen noodles," Lydia purred, scanning the menu. "Can we get appetizers and everything?"

"Knock yourself out," said Lizzie, grinning.

"Ugh, best sister _ever_.” She squirmed happily in her seat and reached for her wine glass. “Why are you back in town so soon, anyway? Meetings again?"

"No, just you."

Lydia looked up, startled, but Lizzie pretended not to notice. She pulled a marked copy of Vince's contract out of her satchel. "This checks out okay. Not a lot of creative freedom and the salary could be better, but it's reasonable. You just need to decide if this is the direction you want to go. You'd be aiming for a whole different kind of audience."

"Right." Lydia gave the contract a glance before setting it face-down on the table and peering at her.

Lizzie took a deep breath. "I'm going to ask you something, but there's no pressure – this is your decision, all right? My pop culture vlogger is thinking of going overseas for a couple of months. What would you say to filling in for her?"

For once, Lydia was speechless. Then she snorted with laughter until people at neighboring tables stared at her. "Oh my god. You, like, _literally_ want to be my boss. I so knew it."

"I would not be your boss," said Lizzie, making shushing motions with her hands. "Think of it as freelancing. You'd make videos for us the same way you make yours, and we'd handle the post-production and marketing. In the meantime, you could keep posting to your own channel – we'll even promote it for you.” She leaned her arms on the table, smiling her most persuasive smile. “Just consider it. It would be good work experience, you'd get exposure and extra income, and at the end of two months you'd have a better idea of how a web video career would suit you."

"Why are you asking me?" Lydia’s laughter faded as everything sank in – the competing job offers, the fancy restaurant, her sister talking like a CEO. "You don't have to do this just to be nice."

"I can't afford to be ‘nice’ in this business. I’m making the offer because you're clearly talented, you have a lot of subscribers and you know some corners of YouTube better than I do. If I don't land a deal with you, someone else will."

Lydia sat back and folded her arms, a mischievous glint in her eyes. "So you need me in your videos, is what you're saying."

"Yes, okay," Lizzie laughed. "My viewers totally miss you."


	6. Chapter 6

After a week or two of frantic preparation, Lydia’s mini-series was ready to launch in April. They chose a loose theme of exploring Los Angeles and filmed with a small handheld camera. Lydia was assigned her own editor to shape the narrative and tighten up the pacing, but they kept the unpolished, spontaneous feel that viewers loved about her.

Lizzie was a ball of nerves at her desk when the first video went up. She clicked play and saw her baby sister standing on Hollywood Boulevard. Lydia’s hair gleamed warmly in the sun and she wore a bright blue top and sunglasses.

“Hey, everyone! This is THE LY-DEE-YAAA and oh my god,” she laughed, “it’s been way too long, you guys. My nerd-tastic older sister is letting me run the show for eight weeks and it is time to mix things _up._ And what better place to start than Hollywood?” She grinned and tilted her head at the Walk of Fame behind her. “Do I look right at home or what?”

As the video files arrived in her inbox like clockwork every week, Lizzie was astonished at what Lydia managed to come up with – sometimes by herself, other times with the help of her ever-growing social media network. She sampled food trucks with Jess in Boyle Heights, cracked jokes with crazy buskers at Venice Beach, went hipster-watching with her friends in Silver Lake. In one episode, she put on a dress and extra eyeliner, snuck into a private party at a West Hollywood nightclub and spent the evening doing shots with Mary-Kate Olsen.

“How did you _do_ that!” Lizzie exclaimed over video chat. “Actually, for legal reasons, don’t tell me.”

Lydia raised her hands and grinned. “You know me, sis, I got connections. Oh, but it turns out I have to skip the music festival on Friday. Vince won’t let me take the afternoon off. He’s being pissy about the whole thing.”

“That’s annoying.”

She shrugged. “Whatevs, he’ll get over it.”

Vince seemed to be the only person who wasn’t thrilled. The old Lizzie Bennet Diaries fans loved seeing Lydia's playful side again, and the rest of Lizzie’s audience were curious about this weirdly insightful younger sister. View counts for both the show and Lydia’s video blog were rising steadily.

Lizzie was catching up on the vlog entries after dinner one evening when something made her smile and cringe at the same time. “Uh-oh. William, you’d better come watch this one.”

Gigi had gone to Los Angeles to visit friends for the weekend and asked Lydia if she wanted to meet for a drink – and Lydia, by the looks of it, had dragged her to the loudest, seediest hole-in-the-wall bar she could find and drank her under the table. The next morning Gigi was slumped at Lydia’s kitchen counter, cradling her forehead in her hands, while Lydia mugged for the camera with her tangled hair in an exaggerated ponytail on the top of her head.

“Hi guys!” she said, loudly. “We’ve got an extra special guest today! Say hi, Gigi!”

Gigi moaned. Lydia pointed at her and rolled her eyes. “Can’t hold her booze for shit, I mean seriously. So today I’m going to show you how to make one of my favorites. I call this one ‘Hangover Sundae’ – just the thing to make for your buddies after a hard night of bar-crawling.” She socked Gigi on the shoulder. “Isn’t that right, _buddy_?”

“Oh god, send help,” said Gigi.

Lydia held up a plate and let it clatter onto the counter. “First you start with a slice of cold pizza. This is, uh, sausage, I think. Kinda hard to tell, we ordered it four days ago. Then you add my personal secret hangover remedy, Tabasco sauce.” She displayed the bottle with a flourish, then practically emptied it onto the pizza. “Reeeeally can’t use too much of this stuff. And now, top it with two scoops of Rocky Road ice cream!”

“Ewww!” Gigi had started giggling in spite of her headache. “Lydia, I think I’m going to be sick.”

Lizzie was shaking with laughter, while Darcy watched over her shoulder with a look of mild horror on his face. Then she grew quieter and reached up to wrap her fingers around his tie. “Notice anything missing?”

“Dignity, perhaps?” he said, before he realized she wasn’t joking. He looked again, and in a moment he saw what she meant. Ever since Lydia and Gigi were introduced two years ago, they had been friendly but never entirely comfortable around each other, the memory of Wickham lingering like a shadow between them. In the video, late on a Sunday morning in Lydia’s messy kitchen, the shadow was gone. For that moment, at least, there was no trace of him at all.

Darcy smiled. “They’ll be fine, I think.”

“Better than fine,” said Lizzie.

Lydia was putting the finishing touches on her masterpiece. “Add some more Tobasco to your sundae, throw on a handful of Captain Crunch cereal, grab a fork and now you KNOCK IT ON THE FLOOR oh fuck.” The plate shattered offscreen.

Gigi laughed so hard she fell off her chair.

 

* * *

 

In hindsight, what happened next seemed unavoidable. It had only been a matter of time.


	7. Chapter 7

“I’m tired,” Lydia says. “I am so tired of men and their bullshit.”

She’s alone now, hiding behind the corner of a building while the Friday night bar crowd howls in the distance. Her pale face is lit by a streetlight and the dim glow of her phone.

“I mean first of all Vince scheduled me for an eleven-hour shift and he was riding my ass the whole night and there was _no reason_ for that, he was just being a dick because he could. And then you know that kind of smug, entitled, Axe-Body-Spray-wearing _douchebag_ who are always prowling around in bars looking for girls who are too drunk to consent to anything? Yeah, we had one of those, and he had his hands all over this girl and she couldn’t even—

“So I went over there and pulled him off her and made Chris call a cab, and of course the guy was a jerk about it but who the fuck cares, right? But then later I was behind the bar and he came over and ordered a drink and he said—”

Lydia swipes angrily at the tears streaming down her cheeks. “He said, ‘Hey Lydia, why don’t you hurry up and post the sex tape, I paid good money for that shit.’”

She clenches her teeth and waits for her voice to come back. “Well,” she rasps, “it turns out bar owners don’t like it when you fling shot glasses at customers’ faces. Vince told me to leave and said I shouldn’t bother coming back. He said I have to apologize or he won’t give me my last paycheck. Because _I’m_ the problem here, _I’m_ the one who needs to change my attitude.

“So here you go, Vince. I’m sorry I let Douchebag Molester Guy bother me so much. I’m sorry I didn’t remind myself that he’s probably totally fun to hang out with when he’s not groping girls like they’re pieces of meat, because that’s just what boys do and I shouldn’t be so fucking sensitive about it. I’m sorry I didn’t join you in the break room while you laughed about what a _dumb bitch_ that girl is, because what does she expect when she gets drunk and goes out in public looking like that?”

Her face crumples just before the screen goes dark. “And I’m sorry I let my stupid girly emotions ruin your evening. How inconsiderate of me.”


	8. Chapter 8

Lizzie pivoted on her heel, her eyes fixed on the groove she’d paced into the living room rug, and speed-dialed her sister’s number one more time. Again, it went straight to voicemail. “Damn it,” she muttered. “Lydia, come on, call me. Let me know you’re okay.”

It was nearly midday, and she’d been on the phone since 6 AM. After Lydia posted to her vlog late last night, none of her friends had been able to reach her, online or off. Things only got more stressful when her mother found out. Darcy had put a few of his LA contacts on standby, but for now all he could do was offer reassurances and sit well out of Lizzie’s way.

To top it all off, Lizzie’s company was now under pressure. Turning Page Productions was promoting Lydia’s channel, meaning the video was displayed on their website. An hour ago, Vince had called threatening to sue her. Lizzie retorted that her lawyer would be contacting him regarding wrongful dismissal, withholding wages and promoting a hostile work environment. Vince hung up.

She refused to distance herself from the video or do anything business-related until she talked to her sister. “It’s a bit late to pull the link down anyway,” she told her assistant. “Just cover for me, okay? I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

Lizzie was on the brink of calling the police when her phone rang. She sagged with relief.  “Lydia, you scared me.”

“I messed up.” Her voice was raw from crying and muffled by the sound of her car.

“Are you all right? Where are you?”

“I’m on the interstate. Can I come stay with you? Please don’t yell at me.”

“I’m not going to yell at you, honey,” Lizzie said. “You haven’t done anything wrong. Are you sure you’re okay to drive right now?”

“Yeah. I’m sober, I’ve had enough sleep, I promise. I just need to keep my phone turned off.”

“That’s okay. Just be careful. Text me as soon as you get here.”

Lizzie was waiting outside the apartment when Lydia arrived five hours later. The sight of her eased the knot of tension in Lizzie’s stomach; her sister looked pale, exhausted, but not broken. She hugged her tightly, then brought her upstairs without a word. Darcy took Lydia’s bag to the spare room, ordered dinner and retreated to his study.

Lydia didn’t say much, and Lizzie didn’t push her. They spent the evening curled up on the couch, eating comfort food and watching reality TV. Finally, as Lizzie was asking if they should put on a movie or call it a night, Lydia rested her head on her shoulder. “I’m really sorry,” she said.

“For what?”

“You took a chance on me, and it blew up in your face.”

“I’m not sorry at all.”

Lydia’s breath hitched in a humorless laugh. “Yeah, well, everyone else won’t be so—”

“Hey.” Lizzie waited until her sister looked at her. “I’m the boss, remember? It’s _my_ company, and I think working with you was a great idea. Everyone else can just deal with it.”

Lydia smiled a little, then sighed and cuddled closer. Lizzie rubbed soothing circles on her back. “You really threw a glass at that guy’s face?”

“Yeah.”

“God, I’ve always wanted to do something like that,” Lizzie said. “What was it like?”

Lydia giggled in spite of herself. “It felt pretty great. He got blood all down his shirt.”

 

* * *

 

Lizzie rose early the next morning, hoping to get on top of the situation before Lydia woke up. She camped out on the couch with a mug of tea, her phone, her iPad, a press release to write, investors to calm down and her mother to deal with, just for a start.

“Oof.” She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. “This was already going to be a long week.”

Darcy put down his coffee cup and stood behind her to massage her neck and kiss the top of her head. “Can I help in any way?”

“If you could pretend not to notice when I start drinking gin straight out of the bottle, that’d be super.” She relaxed into his hands for another minute, then sighed and turned on her iPad. “Time to face the music.” She took a deep breath and a long swig of tea as she pulled up Lydia’s channel.

The next moment she was making frantic high-pitched noises and Darcy was lunging to grab her mug before she spilled it all over the couch. With a huge effort she swallowed, dragged in a breath and shouted, “Lydia! Lydia!”

“What!” Lydia skidded into the doorway of the living room, dressed in her pajamas. “What happened!”

Lizzie was gasping, her left hand flailing at the screen. “It went... it has more than... Lydia, holy _shit_...”

Lydia ran across the room and snatched the iPad away from her sister. After less than two days online, the video had one million, one thousand, four hundred thirty-six views – and counting.

She screamed.

Darcy was already pulling up websites on his phone. Lizzie scrambled to her feet, wrapped an arm around Lydia’s shoulders and scrolled through the comments section with her free hand. Page after page, viewer after viewer taking Lydia’s side and cheering her on.

It didn’t take them long to figure out what happened. The video had gone viral on social media, including retweets from several celebrities, and a popular feminist blog had picked it up. Once it reached websites like Gawker, there was no stopping it. At this rate, Darcy said – staring at Lydia like she’d just beaten him at arm wrestling – it would get mainstream news coverage by the end of the week.

Lydia couldn’t hold still. She grabbed Lizzie, then turned to Darcy and threw her arms around him. “Oh my god, oh my g—!” She let him go. “Nope, sorry, still weird.”

“That’s, um. Fine,” he said, very red in the face.

“Sweet Jesus,” Lizzie laughed helplessly. Her inbox was absolutely flooded with emails – links to the video sent by every person she’d ever met, startled questions from her investors, requests for Lydia to be interviewed on blogs and web shows and podcasts. “I’m sorry, sis, but I’d better call an emergency meeting. Do you think you can handle that?”

“I think so.” Lydia clutched her head for a second and tried to catch her breath. “I need to call Mary. I need to call Jess. Oh god, I need to call _Mom_. I need _all the coffee_. And donuts, can we get donuts?”

“Lydia, I will buy you an entire cake for breakfast if that’s what you want.”

 

* * *

 

Later that day, as Lydia was sitting cross-legged on the conference table in Lizzie’s office and digging through the mountain of text messages on her phone, she burst out laughing and leaned over to show her sister.

“Dear Lydia,” wrote Vince, “I’m sorry I fired you, you can have your job back if you want, just please for god’s sake tell your viewers to stop calling me.”


End file.
